Ayers awful choice as speaker at Pitt

Ayers awful choice as speaker at Pitt

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/valleyindependent/opinion/s_672325.html

March 18, 2010

It's bad enough that 1970s domestic terrorist William Ayers will be
the featured speaker at a University of Pittsburgh function March 26.
Worse is that the sponsoring group has whitewashed Ayers' history in
its promotional materials.

The co-founder of the radical Weather Underground will keynote the
Spring 2010 Conference of Pitt's Council of Graduate Students in
Education a week from Friday. The Weathermen, as they were known,
participated in a series of bombings in the early 1970s, including
the 1974 bombing of Pittsburgh's Gulf Tower.

Ayers admits to participating in bombings at a New York City police
headquarters in 1970, the U.S. Capitol in 1971 and the Pentagon in
1972. Federal conspiracy charges against him were dropped in 1974
because of illegal surveillance.

But a January newsletter promoting Ayers' appearance does not mention
his domestic terrorism past. In part, it notes that Ayers, now 65,
has written extensively about "teaching as an essentially
intellectual (and) ethical ... enterprise."

One would think that in the interest of education, intellectualism
and ethics, Pitt's Council of Graduate Students in Education would be
more forthright about the foul life of its honored guest.

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